I'm a new Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 administrator. I recently downloaded the new 20 Site Admin Templates from Microsoft.
They are great and suddenly I start wondering If I could install those templates for all my sites instead of manually installing them in every site collection. The anwser is Yes !
Did you know that there is a central (or global) library for Sites Templates ? Don't try to find it in the central admin interface, it is not there. The only way to access it is with the stsadm.exe tool.
The only problem is that stsadm.exe does not recognize the title and description of the template like the web interface of a site collection template library.
So I have created a small script to install the 20 tempates with their orginal titles and descriptions.
You can download my script here.
It's very easy, simply extract the file InstallSiteAdminTemplates.cmd from the zip and copy it in the directory (on the server) were you downloaded and extract the 20 templates. Then just double-clik it (on the server).
If your stsadm.exe file is not in the standard directory (C:\Program Files\Common Files\...) you may have to edit the script.
After the installation you have to restart IIS (iisreset).
To check if the templates are installed use the following command (on the server) :
stsadm -o enumtemplates
If you want to uninstall the templates you'll have to use stsadm like this :
stsadm -o deletetemplate -title <template title>
Have fun.
